"The Daily Telegraph of February 15th, 1912, contained the following
paragraph :
'A Buda-Pesth telegram to the Messaggero reports a terrible instance
of superstition. A boy of fourteen died some days ago in a small village. A
farmer, in whose employment the boy had been, thought that the ghost of the
latter appeared to him every night. In order to put a stop to these supposed
visitations, the farmer, accompanied by some friends, went to the cemetery
one night, stuffed three pieces of garlic and three stones in the mouth, and
thrust a stake through the corpse, fixing it to the ground. This was to
deliver themselves from the evil spirit, as the credulous farmer and his
friends stated when they were arrested."

The Date:

According to the publication date of the article that Wright
gives us, and according to the information that is said to be in the article
itself, these happenings appear to have taken place in early 1912.

The Place:

As to the exact location we can only guess. The article is
said to have been sent by telegraph from Budapest, which suggests that the
happenings may have taken place somewhere, anywhere, in Hungary. It is wise
to remember that in 1912 the Hungarian territory was much larger than it is
today, so it is not unthinkable that the location where this case took place
may now be situated outside Hungary. Having said all that, here is a link to
Budapest : www.budapest.hu/

Personal Comments:

We have not been given very much information, so it is hard
to tell if this is a genuine case, or a piece of creative
journalism.

Possible Follow-Up:

This looks like a case that is well worth checking out. I am
pretty sure that I have seen it mentioned elsewhere, possibly in one of the
books by Montague Summers. It may be interesting to see if other sources come
up with the same text. Then we can try to find the original article and see
if it contains further information. Next we can find out more about the
Messaggero (a newspaper ? a news agency ?) and see if it can help us
to find further information. And finally we could see if there is any
Hungarian material on this case. If it is genuine, there ought to be
newspaper articles, court records and such.